Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

January 7, 1996

I call heaven and earth to witness today that I have set
before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
from the Torah (Deuteronomy 30)

We all have dragons in our lives. Some are playful and friendly, like the dragon that visited with us today. There's Pete's dragon, lead character of a charming children's movie. One of my fondest memories is that of holding my two boys, all three of us with tears streaming down our faces, as Julie Andrews sings from the lighthouse to her long-lost sailor, "I'll be your light across the water." Pete's dragon saves the day, and the family is reunited. Then of course there is Puff the Magic Dragon--the Puff of Peter, Paul, and Mary--a dragon who delighted children on the one hand and those who puffed the forbidden weed, on the other. These likable dragons are perhaps descended from the orient, where dragons are a symbol of royal power and are benevolent.

In our culture, quite a different picture emerges, historically. In Christianity, the dragon is the embodiment of evil, closely identified with Satan and with the snake. Draco , the Latin origin of dragon, means "giant snake."

For hundreds of years, people actually believed in dragons. During the Medieval period they were considered an ever-present danger. A knight was not of the first rank until he had slain his first dragon. And so knights often came home from their quests with tales to tell. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , Mark Twain has this to say of them: "As a matter of fact, knights-errant were not persons to be believed--that is measured by modern standards of veracity; yet measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth: you discounted a statement 97 per cent; the rest was fact."

Well into the 17th century learned men wrote learned accounts of the habits and appearances of dragons. In Europe, preserved "baby dragons" were fairly common in collections of curiosities. The Italian mathematician and physician Cardanus saw five dried "baby dragons" in Paris in 1557 and described them as follows: "Two footed creatures with wings so small that, in my opinion, they could hardly fly with them. Their heads were small and shaped like the heads of snakes, they were of pleasant color without feathers or hair and the largest of them was as large as a wren." In 1640 a book called The History of Serpents and Dragons was published by a man named Aldrovandi; it contained pictures which became the standard dragon as we know it today.

Given the ludicrous nature of a literal belief in dragons, we might ask ourselves why the belief persisted for so long, and why the dragon has taken such a firm hold in our psyches. And not just in our culture, but in the Orient as well, in Africa, and in North and South America. We seem to need monsters in our lives--and the dragon is the greatest monster of them all. What does the dragon call forth from us, and why do we keep this creature so close to heart?

Well, for one thing, the dragon represents the presence of evil. We sense that there is such a thing and too often experience it. Unitarian Universalists don't much like to talk about evil, because too many of us have been guilt-tripped by religious authorities from our past: we've been told that the body is evil, that pleasure is evil, that other church doctrines are evil. And then there is the propensity of liberals to think of evil as just "bad upbringing" or "ignorance." But hang around long enough in this old world, read enough history, read enough newspapers, see enough hostages taken--and we begin to suspect that evil does exist. And we begin to understand that we ourselves have the potential to do evil. But because that understanding shakes us to our very bones, we human beings--in all times and in all lands--are prone to project it onto someone else. On people who are different, in some way or another: their skin color, their ethnic background, their religious beliefs. We demonize them so they can carry the weight of our soul's understanding. We make a monster. A dragon that needs slaying. And that of course calls for a hero. It is the externalizing of the dragon and the externalizing of the hero that is the problem. We need to understand that the dragons are chiefly within us, and that we must act as our own heros.

Consider the dragon slayers of our cultural tradition: Beowulf, St. George, Siegfried, the Archangel Michael. These heros are enlarged and enriched by the dragons they face. It is through battle that heroes find themselves coming fully to life, their qualities of courage and compassion being thrown into relief, in the gestalt of combat.

The typical hero story includes a community at risk and a virgin chained to a rock. I don't know why a mother of four couldn't be chained to a rock just as well, but that somehow just doesn't have the same appeal. (Who writes these stories, anyway?) The point here is that the hero is not just on a spiritual quest to ennoble himself--he is the representative of a community at risk. His deeds are done to preserve community. The virgin tied to the rock is, of course, unblemished purity and goodness.

In slaying the dragon, the hero not only gives himself sacrificially for the good of the community, but symbolically speaking, he unites the parts of his own psyche by facing the dark side, the shadow. The result is wholeness in the people and peace in the countryside: no more dragons roam, destroying innocence and goodness. People are are free to work in their fields, to travel from one village to the next, to let their children play unencumbered by fear.

Now there's nothing wrong with having heroes--we all need them. And indeed there are people whose spiritual questing and self-sacrifice benefit the rest of us, those who give themselves for the greater good, those who epitomize honor and courage. And yet we need to remember that the aura that is around them, the larger-than-life quality, comes largely from our laying own aspirations for goodness and for bravery upon them. We so often let our heroes carry our own nobility for us, thereby taking ourselves off the spiritual hook, so to speak. We look at others with admiring eyes, never understanding that we are able to see in them only those values which exist in our own selves, waiting to be nourished and developed, waiting to be given as good gifts to the community.

I want to take us back to the "scripture" that Tom read earlier this morning, the passage from T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral : "<We are men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire;/ Who fear the blessings of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted; / Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God;/ Who fear T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, in The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1971, p. 221.
"> the hand at the window, the fire/ in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal,/ Less than we fear the love of God."

We are as frightened of our capacity for goodness and beauty and nobility as we are frightened of our capacity for violence. It's easier to admire Mother Teresa than to love the poor ourselves. What will we be led to sacrifice? Are we afraid that we'll actually become like Mother Teresa and wear robes and say rosaries twice a day and touch the broken bodies of the sick and dying? If we become too much like her, we might even stop believing in birth control! Such thinking is nonsense! We won't become more like Mother Teresa--we'll become more like ourselves. We won't have to say, "I could never be a Mother Teresa--I'll just admire her." We would be able to sense where compassion touches us, speaks to our own unique lives, and follow that leading. What would it cost to be your own hero? Do you fear that the cost would be too high?

Two things go wrong, says Jungian Robert Johnson, if we project our shadow--or our unowned parts--onto another. He says, "First, we do damage to another by burdening him with our darkness--or light, for it is as heavy a burden to make someone play hero for us. <That includes your minister, I might add. I don't want your goodness projected onto me--own it yourself. Otherwise, I'll surely let you down.) Second, says Johnson, we sterilize ourselves . . . we miss the ecstatic dimension of our own lives. . . . . If you can touch your shadow and do something out of your ordinary pattern," he advises, a great deal of energy will flow from it.

"'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

So where does this leave each of us, going now into a new year? Is there a Jabberwock there? What are the dragons you need to slay? Like the heroes of old, you must go on the quest, in order to bring your goodness, your gifts, into bold relief.

Now there are big dragons and baby dragons. The baby dragons will grow bigger if nourished by the fire-breathing, scorching hot, raging, tearing mama dragons. Those baby dragons are things like envy and idleness, overeating or overworking, overcharging on your charge cards, neglecting your friends, failing to keep the house in good repair. The usual things that turn up on lists of New Year's resolutions. But these, I repeat, are just the baby dragons. The big dragons are two: one is called No-Meaning, and the Other is called No-Love. They birth and nourish all the others. If you can slay them, you've got the whole nest.

These dragons are fearsome, for their wounds are never superficial: they go for your very soul. They growl and rage when they are aroused, and at night through their foul breath they whisper disturbing thoughts to you in your sleep. The one called No-Meaning tells you that life is just one long series of pains and losses and that nothing really has any significance. He tells you that your gifts lack originality, and that the work of your hands is not appreciated. He says also that upon your death, you will simply cease to exist, and that will be that--"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

And then the Mama dragon, whose name is No-Love--her claws are even more fearsome, her breath more blinding, for she tells you that you are not worth loving. You've never been loved, and you never will be. You are alone, and that is what you deserve. There is something, in fact, inherently wrong with you, and that something can never be fixed.

In my own life, the dragon named No-Meaning is pretty much a goner. The jugular has been severed, and he's going fast. I have been blessed with work that is challenging and creative, with a staff that is strong and capable, with a congregation that is healthy and wise--all in a city that is beautiful and nurturing to my spirit. But meaning for me is not attached just to this specific work. I'm convinced in my heart of hearts that my every gesture and every word have meaning beyond what I could ever intend, that my call will continue to unfold, and that I am in service to something much larger than myself.

It's the other dragon, the one called No-love that tears at my flesh, trying to get at my heart. Oh, I know where that dragon sprang from--I've looked at the issues until I'm sick of looking, and now I'm sharpening my sword. I'm afraid, of course. Dragons are scary creatures. But I have already engaged No-love in several squirmishes and have been wounded, but only flesh wounds, as they say. I'm alive and well. And I have companions who are there beside me, who will not desert me in the battle. I understand that killing this dragon does not involve finding a knight to do it for me. I will wield the sword myself. I am strong enough. This is my quest, and I am committed to it.

And what about you? What is the dragon you will do battle with in the new year? Is it loss, or drink, or broken relationship? Is it failure? Is it illness? Is it bad habits and unfaithful friends? Forget will power, forget resolution. They will fail you, you can count on it. Instead, prepare yourself as a warrior. Practice your spiritual discipline. Treat your body like a friend: care for it, and make it strong. Whatever you disrespect in yourself, stop doing it, for strength to fight the dragon can only come from within, from a pure heart.

And as you go to defeat your dragon, remember that you defeat it for all of us, for your community. You see, we need your courage to make us brave. We need the expression of your gifts to help us articulate our own. We need your loving presence so that we can walk about in our own skins without fear. Don't postpone this engagement. Sharpen your sword. We'll stand with you.
So be it.


PRAYER
O Holy One you have put the quest before us--each of us knows what he or she has to do. We pray for the courage to begin, we pray for tenacity when the dragon's breath is hot upon our neck, we pray for reinforcements when we need help in finishing the fight. We are thankful that, when our own strength lags, we have a community of faith to sustain us. May it ever be so.
Amen.

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.